We're using cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. More info
Understood
@e5frogRegistered January 5, 2010Active 3 years, 5 months ago
521 Replies made

Perhaps you can find this soon to be obsolete part somewhere else?

I tried this with F.B.+, pretty neat, I got to room 14 and couldn’t figure out how to make that jump in the lower right corner.

What else is planned? A little gravity, 3D effect, more animations?

I’ve just tried this code on Soviet Union 2010 and it makes everything really slow on emulators, even though I’ve disabled my slowdown loop. What should I do?

You should send it to me so I can try it out with my FlashBoy Plus and finally play it like it should be played. 😉

Protoman85, no that’s not very weird, the connection is somewhere in between good and bad and will continue doing that until it stays bad.

Something very weird is that you had white lines – something that probably no other VB owner has ever seen… 😉

I soldered all four display PCB:s in my units recently, no solder ball, just melted some flux core solder on top of the flex cable edge at about 380 degrees Centigrades, plastic kind of melted/vanished and then I slid the tip along the cleared metal strip over to the PCB – and only in this direction so that the wires wouldn’t bend in the wrong direction.
After all wires were done I washed the flux off with alcohol, being careful not to get anything in any holes (not in the clear plastic cover over the led ramp).

If there was any clogged together strips I’d just put some solder on the iron and slide it along to clear it. Had to use solder wick at one point as well. Before closing up I measured the resistance between each pin on the connector and the attaching surface on the display PCB to make sure I had a good connection.
When done none of them had more than 0.6 Ohms, when getting as much as 2-3 Ohm on some pins it helped cleaning and reattaching the flex cable on the main PCB – so this can also be a source for problems.
Testing was more painful than soldering them actually. 😉

All in all things went very smooth, I have two fully working units now, time to make that link-cable…

I’d love to see any unfinished projects as they might inspire other people.

I think it’s easier if akumie doesn’t run these unfinished games at all and let the programming community brew in piece.

I don’t mind the demos at all – everyone should do it – bigger chance to get that finished game in the future if people practice some first.

Seems like this will force through some ratings on a bunch of games that haven’t been properly tested, there’s only 22 titles, I guess running them in emulation will give some idea though.

Luckily I already have a one complete JPN Jack Bros but good luck to you other people.

However, as I have been trying out a few new games the last days I can at least add a few ratings. 😉

Nice initiative anyway even if it’s a little odd competition rules.

EDIT: Aha, included are also the homebrews and demos…

  • This reply was modified 14 years, 5 months ago by e5frog.

Found it:

http://www.johnnyphantom.me/Johnny_Phantom/Virtual_Boy_Repair.html

$30, doesn’t seem like there has been much happening there lately but I would write and ask at least.

I know a member here did just that – don’t remember who it was right now, he had a homepage about it as well.

I soldered my second unit yesterday, but I can understand being hesitant even if you have the required tools yourself.

There’s actually no need to use Sodium hydroxide to clear the strips of metal, using plain flux core solder clears them just fine. It’s demonstrated in this youtube-clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQC4c9Lylg4

I was never able to get that blob of solder to move around, worked anyway.

Well “must” is a bit unfair, not all people have means to run it on real hardware but adding some sort of bonus would perhaps help getting there.

I don’t mind demos, getting a good start on something and getting a lot of feedback may help getting the game done.

And when is a game 100% anyway, who’s to decide? 😉

Maybe a list of bonus worthy features could be set up.

Sound effects: final point x 1.25
Works on real hardware: x 2

and so on, then the people who holds the competition could steer the programming efforts perhaps.

Just an idea, I don’t think it’s a good thing to set up too harsh rules.

What do you people who actually do all the programming think?

Just tried this with FlashBoy Plus, doesn’t work very well – it has a lot of flickering platform parts all over the screen as soon as it moves.

Sound was a bit annoying after a while but at least it has sound – not something we heard a lot of in the other competing games.

Protoman85, just lower the volume, that little knob on the left side of your VB. 😉

Would be fun to see it worked on a bit more.

Just tried this with FlashBoy Plus, doesn’t work very well with a lot of graphic glitches on all moving objects. So it would be nice with a corrected update.

Attachments:

I haven’t been able to see any anaglyph in emulation either, same problem on all tested glasses, one color bleeds through on one side all the time. 🙁

Better get a FlashBoy Plus instead and play on the real thing.

Just tried this with FlashBoy Plus – very very nice!

Would be nice to see him walk, not just slide around on land, game seems to lock up if you drop too many bombs at the same time (three at once is enough)… I missed what happened (as I was writing here) but the screen went black after being locked up for a while. If you wait even longer it starts from the beginning but with the right screen messed up. Only part of the warning is displayed in the right screen, slid all the way to the right so that only READ is visible with the and vertical spaces between pixels…

What’s that vertical bar at the left side, land graphics appear in front of it and parts of the map. Restarting after the crash above made it disappear though. Cold start and it re-appears.

It’s a little hard to locate yourself on the map, perhaps that dot should be flashing a little.

You can “walk” straight through a house, but the cars stop…

Super-great game, you should really really add some work on it.

I’m very impressed, this would have been top scored from me if the competition was still on. I have to check the results again…

A general thought on these homebrews:
Aren’t we tired of the warning screens now, everyone should know by now anyway. How about just skipping that or instead write something like “Game on!”. 😉
I’m also starting to wonder if my FlashBoy Plus is broken, no games seem to have any sound at all.

Just tried it from the competition pack, very nice looking. A little too extreme perspective to my liking I never got my eyes to get used to it and see it the right way.

I just tried the competition version with FlashBoy Plus, very nice looking game, seems it gets stuck in an endless loop after the third screen or if you die – no way to restart. If you restart by turning on and off VB then the moving objects are still visible on screen all through the intro until the game starts again.

It runs wazzal?

I just tried it from the competition pack and nothing seems to have happened since May 2010…

With FlashBoy Plus (on a real unit) the calibration screen has graphic bugs on the background pattern. No ball is visible in game, alien shots get stuck in mid air, occasional flicker on the aliens. Nice idea but not playable on a real machine.

I downloaded the competition pack and as I have a FlashBoy Plus I naturally used that to try it out. Odd graphic errors with missing bars of vertical graphic and what was there looked a little too wide and odd.

Trying the new version…

Worked perfectly.

EDIT:
Well, not perfectly, when moving around the cursor there are short vertical bars appearing in bands on the right part of the display. About the same width and place as the rendering-bar – I also saw it while rendering after a re-start.

EDIT2:
They aren’t erased when the screen is re-drawn after a zoom either.

Lens screw?

You must mean the PCB with the LEDs? The one currently pictured in Force81’s avatar? 😉

As it’s a philips screw I guess you have stripped it so that a philips screw driver won’t get a grip? (How did you manage to do that? )
I would get a new one from my box of various little screws or bring it to the hardware store and ask for a similar one – or make a trace with a dremel tool (or similar tool) in the head so you can screw it in with a plain screw driver.

I used plain flux core leaded solder. There are a few unused pins to practice on, if you can’t get those right just stop there. 😉

I was worried it could be something with the mirror but then I know it’s the same procedure as last time.

Thanks!